The House Of The Rising Punk (ABC Entertainment)

If you’re the kind of person that read Please Kill Me, someone who gets excited by names like Patti Smith and Richard Hell, then this DVD is an essential addition to your NYC punk collection. Filmed ten years ago, The House Of The Rising Punk shows how punk music came together and evolved on the streets of New York. Sure, fans have heard these stories before, but it’s nice to hear them again and the DVD includes some rare video and audio of early Television, Heartbreakers, Dolls…etc., as well as interviews with band-members. It also shows how the punk aesthetic expanded beyond music, into the world of magazines, poetry, and film through interview segments with director Jim Jarmusch and Punk Magazine creator Legs McNeil. The only complaint I have is that the film wasn’t long enough to tell the full story, and it misses a few important points (there’s no real mention of Max’s Kansas City, No Wave, what happened to all these bands when they left New York to try and conquer the rest of the world…etc.). Still, this a fine summary of an important piece of cultural history.